Home Depot Foundation & KaBOOM! Renew Partnership—Will Promote Playgrounds and Sustainable Practices

On April 10, 2008, KaBOOM!, in partnership with The Home Depot, built their 1,000th playground, this one in Marietta, Ga. Playworld Systems, Inc. is KaBOOM!’s Partner in Play for equipment through June 2009. Fibar Systems, Sof-Solutions and Zeager Brothers Inc. furnish safety surfacing for KaBOOM! on a playground-by-playground basis.

The Home Depot® Foundation announced Sept. 12, 2008 it will continue its partnership with KaBOOM!, the national nonprofit play group, to build playgrounds and playing fields across North America.

The two have been working together since 1996, but will now focus on sustainable practices for a wide array of volunteer initiatives.

For 2009, the two plan to create 57 sustainable places to play and activate 7,000 Team Depot associate-volunteers and 4,000 community volunteers. Those new playgrounds, over their lifetimes, will benefit an estimated 570,000 children.

Three of the playgrounds will be “green” playground pilot projects using new types of sustainable manufactured equipment and reducing the environmental impact of the design, production, building and maintenance of the play areas. Each project will include an environmental education curriculum to teach community leaders, Team Depot associate-volunteers and children about ways to minimize the environmental impact of any community development project. The partners will also create and disseminate sustainable practices for any volunteer initiatives, plus undertake research, education and outreach initiatives to create, record and share sustainable volunteer practices.